Italy: Bellagio, Venice

Overall, a fabulous trip! Loved Italy and hope we will come back (did kind of toss a coin in the Trevi fountain). But it was definitely way too crowded, so would hope to visit in the spring/fall next time. General outline of our trip: Milan -> Bellagio -> Venice -> Rome -> Florence (Pisa) -> Milan.  Things that definitely require ahead of time booking include Colosseum, Vatican, Uffizi, and Last Supper. Many others are also better booked a few days in advance. Some sites we used wikipedia as a guide, but later found Rick Steve's audioguide to be awesome.

Day 1: arrive midday to Milan airport Malpensa, which is actually 1hr train ride to Milano Centrale, so we decided to go to Lake Como up north. Required taking 2 trains (>1hr) to get to city of Como. From there, we took a 2hr ferry to Bellagio where our first hotel was waiting. Quite a bit of transit for the first day, but it was nice to just enjoy the beautiful view of a lake between mountains while lounging on the ferry and half asleep.

Our boat from Como to Bellagio

George Clooney's Villa

View from our balcony

Steep stairs next to Hotel Bellagio

Sunset at Bellagio fishing dock

Day 2 Bellagio: Beautiful small city that required going uphill immediately from the ferry. Our place had a beautiful view of the lake and mountains beyond. We wanted to go on the tour of the Villa Serbelloni, but there were no tours on Mondays. Instead we took self-guided city hike up the hills (maps in tourist office just behind Basilica of San Giacomo), and got some good views of the city, lake, and Alps beyond. AB was a bit drained from the sun, but he made it. The views were okay, but probably would have made better time by visiting the Villa Melzi Gardens. A lot of people spend a couple of days here and perhaps get an all day on/off ferry pass, and then can visit multiple little towns with their beautiful villas. We didn't have time, so we went to Varenna, spent some time along the beautiful narrow pathways and main plaza, and then took a train to Milan, then Venice.

View of Bellagio, Lake Como, and the Alps in the distance

Bellagio town center, lake bank

Varenna

   




Day 3 Venice: The benefit of the summer is that the days are long, so despite arriving at night time, we were still welcomed by a stunning view of the Grand Canal and the San Simeone Piccolo Church. Venice is just like no other. Pictures can't express the atmosphere of no cars or roads and the enchantment of water everywhere. Instead of EMS cars or police cars, there are boat EMS and police in motor boats. Same with taxis - all boats!  Venice really lived up to its hype and glamour.

San Simeone Piccolo Church

Grand Canal on top of the Rialto Bridge

Rialto Bridge ($12 million), has shops on top of it, made of marble

First full day we went to the San Marco Plaza that housed the San Marco Basilica with it's glorious mosaics - one of the largest collections in the world. It was called the Church of Gold because of its extensive gold backed mosaics covering 8000 square meters (enough to cover 1.5 football fields!) and makes the whole place glitter gold. The life of St. Mark is depicted inside. In 9th century, St. Mark's body was stolen from Egypt (pictured in mosaic above the door) and now lies as a sacred relic here. Most of the treasures were from Crusades of Constantinople (Istanbul). There is also a famous alterpiece, the Pala d'Oro, Byzantine gold masterpiece studded with thousands of gems. Church is free, and for $5, we went to the top to see the mosaics up close - amazing!

San Marco (St. Mark's) Plaza

St. Mark's Basilica + amazing mosaics

AB waiting in line to get into the Cathedral, background is the National Library

Doge's Palace corridor

Entrance to the St. Mark's Basilica show scene where St. Mark's body stolen from Egypt

View of St. Mark's Plaza from on top of the Basilica

Top of St. Mark's Basilica. Doge's Palace on left and National Library on right, ocean straight ahead.

Next we visited the Doge's Palace, which was kind of like the president's palace. Entering the palace, there are the Golden Staircases that are literally gold. The rest of the rooms were were the Doge attended his affairs including room of advisors (Scarlet Chamber), granted audience (Scudo Room), for the Senate, for the Great Council (one of the largest rooms in Europe b/c 1 male from each family came), administration of justice (Compass room), etc.  There is also a Bridge of Sighs that prisoners would walk across to the prisons (called sighs because prisoners would sigh when they took a last look at freedom through the windows of the bridge). The prisons were such a maze. This whole place was much bigger than it appeared from the outside. Apparently there are secret passageways, and there's a specific tour you have to book ahead of time for that - sad we missed that!

The Giant's Staircase guarded
by Mars (land) and Neptune (sea)

Golden Staircase leading to
Doge's apartments

One of many beautiful rooms

Chamber of the great Council

Senate Room

Prisons

We continued on to get a fabulous view of Venice (no skyscrapers!) from the Campanille (Bell Tower) that collapsed and had to be rebuilt in 1900's. Then walked along the water, and went to the Arsenal.

St Mark's Basilica

Doge's Palace

Looking out into the the ocean, church, Lido beach on right

St. Mark's Plaze

Looking out towards the trains station and mainland

   

First tiramisu! Yum!

Tried tapas from Cantina Aziende Agricole: sardines/onions on corn meal, fried meat ball, fried eggplant + cheese, strawberries on cheese/bread, eggplant/cheese/bread, cheese? 

We had the best pasta ever here in this small restaurant (where we noticed other than us, there were only italian men). Trattoria Chinellato.

BEST PASTA EVER! Squid ink pasta with cuttlefish - so tender!

It was so fun just to wander the streets!

Day 4 Venice: Since we were in Venice, we wanted to take a gondola ride, but boy is it expensive if you just want a 2 person ride (80 euro/boat), so we waited for some other people to join us.

 

We decided to take the ferry bus to the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute. But the ferry was so slow, essentially going from bank to bank and stopping every single min, that by the time we got there, it was closed for lunch (noon-3p). It would've been faster if we walked! So unfortunately, we could only see the gorgeous outside. We continued on to the Gallerie dell'Accademia, but I think it was under construction, and without Rick Steve's audioguide, we didn't really know what we were to look at. It had venetian paintings of the 13-18th centuries. There was art by Bellini, Lotto, Tinteretto, Titian, Veronese, but I wonder if we might have missed a floor or building or perhaps so much of it was closed due to contruction... The original Vitruvian Man is there, but it wasn't on display. :( Anyhow, we left a good time b/c otherwise we would have been caught in the massive rainstorm.

Looking towards St. Mark's Plaze and the Bell Tower

Santa Maria della Salute Basilica

Wandering the narrow pedestrians streets

The Tempest: "Some academics think that this is the first landscape of Western art history (excluding drawings or watercolors). It depicts a soldier and a gypsy breastfeeding, isolated in a lush landscape. In the background there’s a city, threatened by a storm. This was Lord Byron’s favourite painting because of its ambiguity."

Massive rainstorm with "bus stop" on the right.